What is an ID proponent's basis of comparison? (edited)

quote:

---

So, leaving out living things for a moment, how many bits is an igneous rock (let's say, the size of a baseball), or a star (let's say, the sun)?

---

We do not know. CSI is a suitable measure for biological information because it works with digits. There are no digits in a Sun or a rock, so we can't say. Unlike DNA which is a digital code like the code on a computer.

quote:

---

Are these things designed or not? I mean, they're pretty complex, depending on how you look at them.

---

We do not know, since we can not measure their amount of CSI.

quote:

---

Also, where does this 400 bits estimate come from?

---

Well the first estimate was 500 bits, but the new one is closer to 400. It's from Dembski's new book The Design of life.For an older estimate, read this article.

quote:

---

These 500 informational bits are derived from Dembski’s Universal Probability Bound of 10^-150 using:

​

Information(Event) = -log2Probability(Event) or I(E) = -log2P(E)

​

This UPB is based upon the maximum possible physical reactions in the universe (# of particles, duration of the universe, etc). A probability event that exceeds the UPB is considered by statisticians to be one in which chance is precluded.

---

http://www.overwhelmingevidence.com/...than_a_thousand_wordsThe new estimate of 400 bits comes from the work of Seth Lloyd. The maximum number of bit operations the universe could have produced from the supposed Big Bang is about 10120. Which translates to 400 bits of information.

quote:

---

Merely by existing, all physical systems register information. And by evolving dynamically in time, they transform and process that information. The laws of physics determine the amount of information that a physical system can register (number of bits) and the number of elementary logic operations that a system can perform (number of ops). The universe is a physical system. This paper quantifies the amount of information that the universe can register and the number of elementary operations that it can have performed over its history. The universe can have performed no more than $10^{120}$ ops on $10^{90}$ bits.

---

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0110141

quote:

---

No one ever denied that. We know humans can make things. Pretty darn complicated things. But just because we can replicate something we find in nature doesn't mean that thing in nature was intelligently designed.

---

Actually it does. That is, using scientific reasoning, our methods say it does. Becasue there are some features, a certain patterns that we find in nature that we know only arise from an intelligent cause. So by using the method of inference to the best explanation, we infer that when we see CSI in nature, we conclude design.

quote:

---

Houses are not proof that an "intelligent being" made caves.

---

Exactly, because the caves do not exhibit the patterns we need to infer design.

quote:

---

Algorithms obviously need input by definition, obviously. But why "intelligent input"? How can an algorithm recognize the difference between input from an intelligent source and input from an unintelligent (a-intelligent?) source?

---

It can't, but that's not the point. The point is that only the intelligent input is going to produce CSI through an algorith. Becasue an intelligent source knows what it's goal is, and how to achive it. An unintelligent cause, does not. It has no teleology, so it can't point in the right direction to a specific goal, which is CSI.

quote:

---

Hey SO, welcome to the fray. I think you'll find that this website is more or less dominated by the evolutionist side of the debate. Still, even though I'm an ID advocate, I find this forum intellectually stimulating and occasionally educational. Good luck.

---

Hi there. I'm fine with the majority being evolutionists. It just means there will be more debate for me! Hope we all just get along fine though...

Yes, that's a fact. Extrapolating from there that ALL CSI si created by intelligence is a leap in logic, and asserting it does not make it a fact. You are assuming it to prove your point when we have no reason to believe it's true, and in fact, we have evidence to the contrary. But, it's not the only way to create CSI. That is another assumption. Evolutionary programming is a new field of programming, but it has created many novel ideas, without being created by intelligence, unless of course you consider a computer to be intelligent.But still, it's unfounded to jump from "some" to "all."From your own quote: The theories are formulated and tested against each other. What does your ID claim postutlate that is in conflict with TOE? You say CSI can't evolve, TEO says it can, ok, so you now need to prove that it can't rather than asserting it. All else being equal, TOE is a better theory because it makes predictions, which have been verified, and postulates less entities, thus satisfying parsimony. Your conclusion is "Intelligence designed life," The evidence you're not following is that evolution has been observed to create new life, create new information, and is not intelligent.

How could you even begin to come up with the probability of a random action happening?

Nor is it decided by a book written 2000 years ago. Thankfully, people have devoted their lives to following the evidence and have given us ways to understand the universe we see. Thise ways are the Theory of Gravitation, Germ Theory, Theory of Evolution, etc. So, is a donkey intelligent? It can decide between options?And here we get reasonable probabilities. What do you consider reaosnable? When you consider the probability of a random event, say a transcription error, or a cosmic ray hitting a germ cell that ends up fertilizing an egg, what numbers do you plug in? How do you decide on those numbers? Or do you say, I don't think that's likely, thus it was intentional?

quote:

---

Yes, that's a fact. Extrapolating from there that ALL CSI si created by intelligence is a leap in logic, and asserting it does not make it a fact.

---

Why is it leap of logic when ONLY intelligence has been seen to create CSI. What else has been seen to create CSI? What else do you want to say can create CSI? What?

quote:

---

You are assuming it to prove your point when we have no reason to believe it's true, and in fact, we have evidence to the contrary.

---

a.) Define an assumption.b.) Where? Where is the evidence to the contrary?

quote:

---

But, it's not the only way to create CSI. That is another assumption. Evolutionary programming is a new field of programming, but it has created many novel ideas, without being created by intelligence, unless of course you consider a computer to be intelligent.

---

Wrong. Evolutionary algorithms do not produce new CSI. Didn't you read all my posts on this topic? I explicitly explained why. Read my answer to Peepul about the evolutionary algorithms.EvC Forum: Message Peek

quote:

---

But still, it's unfounded to jump from "some" to "all."

---

That is becasue ALL CSI that we know it's origin, has been from intelligence.

Quite true, always happy to cite:Rich Baldwin, (2005). Information Theory and Creationism
Information Theory and Creationism: William DembskiMark Perakh, (2005). Dembski "displaces Darwinism" mathematically -- or does he?
Talk Reason: arguments against creationism, intelligent design, and religious apologeticsJason Rosenhouse, (2001). How Anti-Evolutionists Abuse Mathematics The Mathematical Intelligencer, Vol. 23, No. 4, Fall 2001, pp. 3-8.
http://www.math.jmu.edu/~rosenhjd/sewell.pdf

quote:

---

How could you even begin to come up with the probability of a random action happening?

---

Like a dice toss? Well the probability of a dice thrown and a 6 landing is 1/6 since there are 6 faces to a dice, and all have equal probability.

Actually, ALL CSI that we know the origin of has come from humans, thus it's logical (according to you) to say that humans have designed all CSI?The problem is, the CSI we know the origin of is because we're the origin. You're looking at a skewed sample set and asserting that the sample is a representational one, which is just false.RAZD likes to bring up his red car fallacy. If you look only at red cars, you can then say that all well-made cars are red, because all known well-made cars are red. This is fallacious, and just because we don't know where the other CSI comes from, you can't assume its from source A without any evidence. Assumption: Something believed to be true for the purpose of argumentation, or a claim asserted without evidence.Evolution. We have seen evolution in action. We have seen new information made in the lab. What mechanism do you propose that would stop information from arising naturally? Define intelligence then. The whole point of these algorithms is to take us out of the equation. They are allowed to go on their own, without input or guidance from us. Unless you assume the computer is intelligent, and in that case, an environment is intelligent, because the computer works in exactly the same capacity in these cases as a natural environment does on life forms.

I knew you would misunderstand this. No. I mean, the odds of a cosmic ray streaking from a nova thousands of light years away, diving through our atmosphere and hitting the germ cell of an animal, and that germ cell then developing into a new life form. Or, how about a transcription error during DNA replication? These are random events, which unlike the dice toss, are not initiated in a non-random way and for which there are not a finite number of possibilities.Here's another example. How about I'm sitting at my computer writing a story. My girlfriend calls to me from another room, so I lose my concentration while typing, and instead of saying, "She walked across the room." I type, by mistake, without intelligent direction, "He talked across the room." This is still a valid sentence, but it now says something completely different. The information has changed and is a different length, so the amount of information is different. If this can happen in our instance, why can't it happen in DNA. Again, what is the mechanism you postulate that would stop that from happening?Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

quote:

---

This is wrong. In general, there is no relationship whatsoever between the Kolmogorov complexity of a string and its probability of occurrence.

---

Actually there is. if there string has more bits, the chances some event will happen is smaller. if we have a dime that has 2 sides (representing 2 digits on a string), the probability of one event happening, let's say "heads" is 1/2.On the other hand, if we have a dice with 6 sides, and we want a number 3 to come up when we toss it, the probability is 1/6. The more sides, the less the probability. Obviously there is a connection.

quote:

---

Another comment that immediately comes to mind is that if a search is assisted by information from a higher-order space, the search algorithm that has acquired such information is not a "black-box" algorithm any more, so the No Free Lunch theorems, at least in the form they were proven by Wolpert and Macready, are invalid for such algorithms. (Wolpert-Macready's proof was valid for black-box algorithms. A black-box algorithm has no advance knowledge of the fitness landscape and acquires such knowledge step-by-step, extracting it from the fitness landscape in such a way that it accumulates information about the already visited points in the landscape but still has no knowledge of any points not yet visited; it possesses no knowledge of a target either, if the search is target-directed.)

---

Neither does the evolutionary algorith have any information about the landscape, so it is the same thing.Those first two links you posted have mistakes. The last one doesn't even mention Specified Complexity, so it is obvious to me you do not even know what you are talking about.

quote:

---

Actually, ALL CSI that we know the origin of has come from humans, thus it's logical (according to you) to say that humans have designed all CSI?

---

No. An intelligence is what I'm claiming is the cause, not humans.

quote:

---

The problem is, the CSI we know the origin of is because we're the origin. You're looking at a skewed sample set and asserting that the sample is a representational one, which is just false.

---

But there are no other know sources. What other source is there?

quote:

---

RAZD likes to bring up his red car fallacy. If you look only at red cars, you can then say that all well-made cars are red, because all known well-made cars are red. This is fallacious, and just because we don't know where the other CSI comes from, you can't assume its from source A without any evidence.

---

No since, there is nothing in those red cars that specifically makes them well-made. A red car by definition does not ahve to be well made.

quote:

---

Assumption: Something believed to be true for the purpose of argumentation, or a claim asserted without evidence.

---

Well my evidence is that the only known cause of CSI is intelligence.

quote:

---

Evolution. We have seen evolution in action. We have seen new information made in the lab.

---

Evidence?

quote:

---

What mechanism do you propose that would stop information from arising naturally?

---

The NFL theorem says so. It has been tested and it shows that algorithms do not rpoduce new information.

quote:

---

Define intelligence then.

---

The ability to plan ahead and create and modify information.

quote:

---

The whole point of these algorithms is to take us out of the equation.

---

But they were designed, that's the point. They are guided by an intelligent input. They are not the ones creating new information.

quote:

---

They are allowed to go on their own, without input or guidance from us.

---

Wrong. The target specified to be found, and the constraints on the search space of the algorithm are the intelligent input.

quote:

---

Unless you assume the computer is intelligent, and in that case, an environment is intelligent, because the computer works in exactly the same capacity in these cases as a natural environment does on life forms.

---

No, I do not assume that. I know for a fact, that the whole system of the computer and the algorith has been designed to do the job. And it has been designed by an intelligence.Edited by Smooth Operator, : Not done...Edited by Smooth Operator, : Not done...

quote:

---

I knew you would misunderstand this. No. I mean, the odds of a cosmic ray streaking from a nova thousands of light years away, diving through our atmosphere and hitting the germ cell of an animal, and that germ cell then developing into a new life form. Or, how about a transcription error during DNA replication? These are random events, which unlike the dice toss, are not initiated in a non-random way and for which there are not a finite number of possibilities.

---

Actually the universe is deterministic in it's laws, so everything is basicly non-random. You need a reference class of all posibilities and the replicational resources to calculate a certain event.

quote:

---

Here's another example. How about I'm sitting at my computer writing a story. My girlfriend calls to me from another room, so I lose my concentration while typing, and instead of saying, "She walked across the room." I type, by mistake, without intelligent direction, "He talked across the room." This is still a valid sentence, but it now says something completely different. The information has changed and is a different length, so the amount of information is different. If this can happen in our instance, why can't it happen in DNA.

---

Either thinking jsut because you are not aware of what you were doing for an instant, you already had the idea, that is, information in your mind, and you materialised it by typing. You performed an intelligent act. There is nothing strange about it.

quote:

---

Again, what is the mechanism you postulate that would stop that from happening?

---

Nothing, it was an intelligent act.Edited by Smooth Operator, : No reason given.

But you're looking for a specific number or side. The real question is, when we roll the die, what are the odds that some number of dots will be on the upward face? 1. What are the odds when we flip a coin that one of the sides will be on top? 1.Evolution doesn't drive toward a specific goal, the odds of something happening approaches 1, and that's the problem with calculating odds: What question are you asking and how are you calculating those odds?For DNA, what are the odds that a specific Adenine will be switched to a Cytosine? Well, it would be 1 divided by the number of bases in the DNA strand times the mutation rate times 3. But that's the wrong question. What you really should ask is, what are the odds that one of the bases on the DNA will be changed during transcription? Again, the odds approach 1.

quote:

---

But you're looking for a specific number or side. The real question is, when we roll the die, what are the odds that some number of dots will be on the upward face? 1. What are the odds when we flip a coin that one of the sides will be on top? 1.

---

That's correct.

quote:

---

Evolution doesn't drive toward a specific goal, the odds of something happening approaches 1, and that's the problem with calculating odds: What question are you asking and how are you calculating those odds?

---

The odds are not 1 because we are looking for a biological function. Not just any combination of DNA sequences. We are looking for those that give us ne biologic functions. I know that evolution is not directed. That is why it can't produce new biological functions, i.e. CSI.

quote:

---

For DNA, what are the odds that a specific Adenine will be switched to a Cytosine? Well, it would be 1 divided by the number of bases in the DNA strand times the mutation rate times 3. But that's the wrong question. What you really should ask is, what are the odds that one of the bases on the DNA will be changed during transcription? Again, the odds approach 1.

---

No, the question relevant to evolution is, what is the probability of getting a new biological function.